SOURCE: Hooper, Brad. Review of Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, by Isabel Allende. Booklist 94, no. 11 (1 February 1998): 875.

In the following review, Hooper compliments the sensuous elements of Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.

If [Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses] is just a cookbook, then Allende's novels are just potboilers! From the author of such incomparable novels as House of the Spirits (1985) and the highly evocative collection Stories of Eva Luna (1991) comes a luscious book about aphrodisiacs—“the bridge between gluttony and lust.” To care less about food preparation with seduction in mind would not prohibit any appreciator of beautiful writing from thoroughly enjoying this extraordinarily seductive book. Yes, Allende does provide recipes, and many of them may spark chemistry between two individuals. But more important than the recipes are her historical and biological ruminations on the inseparability of food and eroticism. With her “sole focus [being] on...